Above is the current progress on the map-- about halfway done with flat colours. I am only working on it a small bit each day. Honestly it looks a bit better than I expected this way so I may or may not get super intense with the shading later; we'll see. I will at least be tweaking tones regardless once everything is down.

As I go through this stuff, I'm noticing/remembering things from back when I was making this and I thought I would share some of them with you...

Keep in mind this map was just a random map based on the leaders of the league; I had no intention to make a game based off of it... that said, whether it was deliberate or not, there were definitely some parts of the map that I drew imagining as if they were a game after all.

For instance, I imagined that the destruction in Jasper would section the player out of there for a time.

I know I must have imagined the Grand Gates beind stuck.

And in the old map topic I mention Chrysolia Pass (now a sidequest area connecting to the wasteland wall) was the only way to get up into the Aventurine Region (we end up going through Tanzan mountain instead)

There's also a few less than obvious things I see as I work on this that I planned in advance and made it into the game:

The Department Store is marked in katana in its in-game location. I remember planning to have an exit out onto Onyx Ward from the top floor. I think I was going to make this a necessary passage at some point maybe due to the stairs collapsing, but that never happened because of the sticker system instead.

The orphanage is marked with a lightning bolt, also in its original Lapis place. Although I did try to match block-for-block when designing the in-game city to this map, there were more than a few things (such as the literal entire Lapis Ward) that had to be dramatically changed due to not being able to do diagonal tiles and such.

...Other things, such as the Ferris Wheel and Rhodocrine Tree did not make into game, just because of the complexity of graphics involved...

In terms of the Ferris Wheel it will not appear because there is no real point for it.

As for the tree, it was originaly going to be the source of destruction but there was no real cause for it. It was replaced with the PULSE Tangrowths.

Many of the gyms changed designs as well-- frequently due to graphical practicalities. You can see the arenas for Julia and Florinia's gyms outside even though they fight in-doors in game. There's also an arena ontop of Ametrine Mountain that does not appear in-game. Finally... and spoilers, Titania's gym also appears on the overworld on the map, but she will also be indoors in the end.

I have also remembered that one of the reason there are so many cracks in the city is becauseI was originally drawing this in ink, so there was no erasing. The post-apoc city setting was forgiving because if I made a grave error there, almost no matter where, I could just draw a crack over it. bada-bing bada-done.

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Worked a little more on sprites today and finished several but I felt myself starting to rush them so I might slow down to make sure I'm doing a good job with everything.

I really do not want to do Golispod, it is very gross to me but i will have to stare at it for a long time........